The seven books of Paulus Ægineta, volume 2 (of 3) : $b translated from the Greek: with a commentary embracing a complete view of the knowledge possessed by the Greeks, Romans, and Arabians on all subjects connected with medicine and surgeryPaulus, Aegineta
History
The seven books of Paulus Ægineta, volume 2 (of 3) : $b translated from the Greek: with a commentary embracing a complete view of the knowledge possessed by the Greeks, Romans, and Arabians on all subjects connected with medicine and surgery
Paulus, Aegineta
Medicine; Medicine, Arab; Medicine, Greek and Roman
and honey, or the ashes of figs mixed with cerate. Wash the sore with a
decoction of camomile in water, and the root of the wild dock. But some
burn the sore with heated irons. They ought in the first place to get
draughts of simple things, such as buckthorn, wormwood, the juice of
laserwort, germander, the water germander, and poley. These are compound
applications: Of river crabs, of the shoots of the white vine burnt in a
vessel of copper or bronze two spoonfuls, of gentian root triturated one
spoonful, give to drink for forty days, with two cyathi of old undiluted
wine. Some add two spoonfuls of the blood of the partridge. The crabs
are to be taken when the moon is on the increase before sun-rising. But
to those who do not drink it every day give a double doze, and sometimes
a triple. And the theriac from vipers may be given with advantage. The
patient is to be purged with the preparation from the wild cucumber,
which is to be given every day with the decoction of sage, or with the
Heraclean ironwort, which is also called alysson. Some also give the
liver of the dog that inflicted the bite to eat. Such a diet is to be
given as blunts and extinguishes the power of the poison, and at the
same time prevents it from being carried deeper into the system. Both
these ends may be accomplished by drinking old sweet wine that is both
undiluted and strong, or milk, and in like manner by eating garlic,
onions, and leeks. But if from some hinderance at the commencement the
remedies which we have described have been neglected, scarification,
cupping, or burning the wound, must not be had recourse to, because the
poison has already been carried to the deep-seated parts; but we must
use the remedies called metasyncritica, that is to say, when the attack
of hydrophobia has not come on. Purging with hiera and divided milk is
also to be had recourse to, with sudorifics; and calefacient plasters,
and sinapisms are to be applied to every part of the body. But the most
effectual of all remedies is a course of hellebore frequently repeated.
* * * * *
COMMENTARY. Aristotle is the first author who mentions hydrophobia, but
his account of it is remarkably incorrect, if the text be not corrupted.
He says, all animals that are bitten by a rabid dog are affected with the
disease _except man_; and that the disease proves fatal to all animals
_but man_. (H. A. viii, 22.) But see the Annotations of Schneider. (l.
c.) Ovid ranks inveterate gout and hydrophobia among the incurable
diseases:
“Tollere nodosam nescit medicina podagram,
Nec formidatis auxiliatur aquis.”
_Ex Ponto_, i, 3, 24.
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